


The Festival / Down Under

by orphan_account



Category: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Video Game), I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
Genre: CW: Death, End of the World, Gen, cw: suicide mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 16:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19977196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: I cannot BELIEVE I wrote this.





	The Festival / Down Under

Brazil. There is a note in his pocket saying that this is where he must go to remain safe. There are a lot of things he can't remember, but he does know that he'll die if he goes back home. Germany, he thinks, but he's not sure.

He's lived a long life. He can't tell this through memories, but from the lines on his face. With half of his life gone from him, he can't bear to lose any more of it.

Once in the airport he pauses to read the note again. It tells him an address and that he shouldn't be afraid to ask people for questions if he gets lost - just speak English and act like a confused tourist. Which he can do. He's probably seen a few tourists. The confused part he never has to act.

He glances up from the note, looking out at the other people in the airport. Some of them must have been on the plane with him, but his memory is already beginning to fail him again, and he can't memorize their faces.

Glass sprays on his back.

He ducks along with several others who were inflicted. He turns to find that something is burning outside.

Burning, why does that smell hurt him so?

Run. You have to run.

Just like the note said.

So he does.

The building begins rocking, sending debris down atop people. There are parents shielding their children as they rush out of the building. He's ahead of the crowd somehow.

Outside is worse. The burning is worse and it hurts him horribly.

Something hot that's not just plain heat but it isn't fire hits his face. He realizes he's lost his suitcases - he's always losing things!

He turns around, trying to see if he can ask someone for help because that's what he's supposed to do. The crowds are rushing out, and he takes a step back.

The ground beneath him is open. There's a sensation in his stomach of falling, and the hole closes up before anyone can even hear him screaming.

California. Ted hears screaming from outside. In a panic, he jumps up from the chair and sprints out of the building, only to choke on the new atmosphere. Ted yanks his sleeve over his hand and presses it over his mouth and nose. He whirls around to see what's going on.

The heat, coming from an unidentified source, makes everything look wobbly, flickering from side to side. Ted squints as it begins to sting his eyes, pricking him with tears.

Is this the end of the world, then? They theorized it would be soon, and he'll admit that he let himself get caught up in the fear. He's always so afraid.

No one notices him as he stands in the middle of the street; they run around him like he's not even there.

Another wave of whatever-it-is causes the whole city to rock. Ted's legs give out underneath him, sending him to his knees. The ground is hot, searing his skin even through the fabric of his pants. Someone calls out his name, begging him to come back inside.

He can't get up. He's sticking to the ground.

He presses his hand down, even as the heat tears through his skin, and pushes himself off. The skin of his right palm is peeling off now, and blood drips down. He holds his shaking arm out as he stumbles towards the building.

The woman in the building reaches out for him, too. Stacey, a good friend who runs the spa.

Ted is inches away from the building when the roof collapses. He can hear the sickening crunch of her bones. Her head still sticks out, retaining the same worried expression, now unblinking and accompanied by blood dripping from her mouth.

Ted stumbles back, running into someone who shoves him. He hits another person, then reels backwards and lands on the ground.

It burns him, but he can't get up. He can't breathe.

Then he stares up with wide eyes and screams as a building comes towards her.

And then he's falling.

Georgia. Gorrister is willing to admit that the apocalyptic sight hurts, but he also no longer cares. He sits outside sipping his sweet tea as he ignores the frantic suggestions to come back inside. At this point, the end of the world is now a welcome sight. He's been unsuccessful in killing himself before, so he might as well go with the rest of the planet.

Even with his skin feeling like it's about to singe off, Gorrister has a strange sense of...forced relaxation. _Something_ isn't allowing him to feel panic, and he's okay with that.

Then Ruth, the woman who owns the run-down place, tugs his arm. Her voice is muffled by a napkin covering her mouth, but he can hear her chastising him for staying outside. She forces him to his feet, and something compels him to follow.

He stumbles alongside her as he's unable to speak. She's panicking now, trying to drag him into the building to save him. She's saved him so many times, some that she doesn't even know about.

She reaches the door and opens it, and Gorrister waits a millisecond, and the ground opens up underneath him.

Ruth cries out, grabbing his vest with one hand and his arm with another. He glances down, and suddenly he doesn't want to die. He grabs onto her and tries to pull himself up, to help her get him out.

She might be assuring him that he's okay, or he might be hearing things. She tugs at him frantically, and her hands slip.

His hands too.

He reaches out, grabbing for anything. As soon as his hands touch the searing ground, he reflexively jerks them away, sending him plummeting downwards.

New York. Ellen feels the rocking and pauses halfway up the flight of stairs. The staircase makes her a bit claustrophobic, but it's not as bad as the elevator, which always sends her into a panic. Not wanting to get into another bout of hysteria, she flattens her back against the wall and presses her papers against her chest as she takes deep breaths with her eyes closed.

Then someone grabs her hand, and she cries out, stumbling down a few steps. He catches her arm and explains quickly that there's something _bad_ going on. They need to get to the shelter in the basement of the building immediately.

Ellen's mind is racing so quickly that she can barely comprehend these words at all. He tugs on her arm, and she jerks it away and follows him down the stairs.

Then they're swinging, lurching through the air.

The roof is on top of her, and she's on the ground floor even though she was up on the sixth floor just a few seconds ago. Everything in her body feels wrong, and she can't breathe.

Tears are streaking down her cheeks as she pushes away the rubble. It's too heavy, so she tries to pull herself out.

She feels something grabbing her, pulling her away. Her legs don't seem to work right, limp as they're tugged out from underneath the rubble.

She looks back, about to thank whoever saved her, but there's no one.

And then whatever it is brings her _down_.

Washington, DC. Benny figures the war memorial is a good a place as any to witness the end of World War 3. He figures America should have won, but whoever does win will earn themselves a hollow victory anyway. He glances back at the memorial and traces a familiar name to him. His smile is really more of a grimace, and he furrows his brow as he thinks of what these people were really like in combat.

Cowards, all of them.

He ducks behind the memorial, but of course that's does nothing to help him. It's becoming too hot to touch, so he ducks behind a bench, and then a tree.

The ground is now searing his feet beneath his shoes.

Maybe this is what he gets for what he's done. He flinches at the blisters forming across his face, and the rest of his body too.

He's not going to accept this fate.

Benny shoves past people as he flees. He sprints down the street and trips on something -

Not trips, because that would send him flat on the ground. He just falls straight down.

Underneath. Ted finds himself laying sideways, his legs splayed over the stomach of a woman flat on the ground. Both of his wrists are totally busted, bleeding and even showing bone.

He gasps out and tries to get up, but any movement hurts it further. She panics and tries to shove him off of her, which does get him to roll over. She shuffles out from underneath him and finds, with a growing sense of panic, that her legs _still_ aren't working. They're probably paralyzed.

The others aren't doing too well either. The older man sits a little too still with a blank expression on his face. One man just isn't getting up, and another is already on his third attempt to stand, which ends in a failure just like the first two.

Ted brings his arms into his lap, despite how it makes his stomach turn to see his hands dangling limply like they are. As he stares at them, the muscle shoots out, bringing the hand back to the wrist. It goes slowly, as if savoring the moment. And then the skin stitches back together.

The woman gets up as if it pains her, and takes a few experimental steps forward. She limps, but she can walk. She takes a deep breath to relax herself.

"I'm Ted," Ted says.

The other four, even the dazed old men, turn to look at him.

"I thought we should introduce ourselves. If we're stuck here for a bit..."

"Gorrister," one of the men responds. He's scratching at a blister already forming on his hand.

"Benny," another men responds shortly.

"I'm Ellen," the woman says, and then she goes to help the old man up.

He still looks a bit confused, so he pulls out the note in his pocket and scans it again. "N," he says, putting his thumb over the initial at the top of the note. His name must have been hidden for whatever reason.

"Nimdok," something murmurs, and the man agrees, "Nimdok."

Everyone knows that's not his name.

"So where are we?" Gorrister asks, posing the question they were all wondering.

"Maybe it was some sort of shelter built during the war," Ted suggests.

"Then there would be more than five people here," Benny argues. "...And probably no civilians."

"I just want to go back home," Ellen murmurs, her voice coming out in a whine.

Benny shields his eyes as he scans the empty scene before them. Metal floors, a metal roof, and not a wall inside.

"Let's start walking," he says. "We'll hit a wall eventually."

"Then what?" Nimdok asks.

"Then we find a door." He says it like it's obvious.

Something, the same something that named Nimdok, laughs. Ted gasps and ducks, shielding his face as if something will come down on him following the laugh.

"Get up," Benny says. "That just means someone _else_ is hear."

And the something continues, "You will soon find that you, like me, can never leave this place. We are trapped in the same prison."


End file.
